East London Cash Machines Get Regional Dialects

ON Commercial Street, close to gentrified Spitalfields Market in east London, bankers at the cash machine can withdraw their money guided by Cockney rhyming slang.

The typical tourist or marketing professional using the machine will feel quite the little pencil squeezer as he takes hold of his Ayrton.

But might the scheme take on in other parts of the country? In Kensington & Chelsea anyone using the machine would be met by the message: “Cash – how very vulgar”; in St John’s Wood the cash machine declares in a range of Filipino dialects: “Put it back. It’s not worth it”; and in South London the machine retains the bank card for forensic purposes.

In Scotland the machine can be fitted with a slow release valve to deliver a huff of disapproval for any use of overdraft facility.

And in Liverpool… Well, the advice is “Hurry up, your Excellency. The Bizies are comin’…”